If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention

The Rundown

I’ve been doing Improv and working and going out to eat with friends. In fact, I’ve eaten out waaaaaaaay too much this past month. The budget is hurting and so is the waistline.

I’ve been hanging out at the THorum, of course. I think sometimes I get all my words out over there so I don’t have any left over for here. Any rambling thoughts I have get posted in one of the threads over there, and I know most of my readers here are from over there, so I don’t like to repeat stuff.

Lately, though, I’ve felt kind of displaced from the THorum. The current dynamic isn’t sitting well with me, and I feel … well, like someone hanging on to something that’s not there. It’s hard to explain, I guess. It’s the nature of the Internet for things to change, and sometimes rapidly so. I’ve had a lot of great times over there and met a lot of great people. I chat with several of them online frequently. I chat on the phone with one of them almost every other day, and I’ve talked to a couple of others on the phone. I’ve met three of them in person. I consider a lot of them to be friends.

But something lately has been weird, and I can’t put my finger on it. Interpersonal relationships there have taken some weird turns, but that happens. Random nonsensical posts that never bothered me before are starting to irk me. People take strong stands on things it is evident they know little about. For some reason it bothers me that newish folk haven’t taken the time to get to know the THorum before diving in – there’s no sense of history there, and that bugs me, even though I know it’s irrational of me to think that people should read the whole board before joining. I think I’m maybe just getting crankier.

Maybe it’s the lack of respect. It’s the little things – insulting a guy who’s been there a year longer than you, not taking the time to read a thread before posting in it, not taking the time to punctuate and capitalize correctly – all signs of a lack of respect for one’s fellow readers. These things happen all the time all over the Internet, but the THorum’s been pretty good about being different in these areas. It’s been growing, though, and some of these things are starting to become more frequent.

I know if I wait it out things’ll get better. I’m just bugged about things as they are right now.